Salute! America’s Army: Proving Grounds On Steam

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I’m fairly glad the America’s Army series exists. Before it existed, I had to ask my dad about army life, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned if I want to sleep at night it’s to not ask my dad about what he did in the army. To be honest, that also applies to his life in Glasgow before the army. And after. And yesterday. So instead I’ve had to find another route into the khaki trousers, and that’s where the mightily pro-Army series comes in. America’s Army: Proving Grounds, a new game focusing on ‘small unit tactics’ has just launched its beta on Steam. Have a proper gander at the trailer below.
It’s a multiplayer shooter, with small unit assaults of 6 vs 6 and up to 12 vs 12, with normal and hardcore modes. Hardcore is where you take everything you’ve gone through, the head shaving, the shouting, the psychological torture of trying to get friends to play a game on Steam at the same time, and apply it. The rewards here aren’t killstreaks or unlocks, but the warm glow of a team making objectives together. It’s free, so if I’m not dragged out to anything ‘cultural’ this weekend, I’ll probably play it for an hour.

My strongest memory of America’s Army was my character sitting at a desk filling in an test. I had to pass it before being allowed into the full game. There are quite a few games I’d like to implement that for.

Remember the pre 9/11 recruiting propaganda? The one that said the army is basically a long coed camping holiday? I miss those adverts. I guess that seemed tasteless around the time there was an actual war.

Yeah. One of the better parts of Bioshock:Infinite from a story telling perspective were the parts with the amusement park, where children were taught positive associations to the military, patriotism and obedience.

I think it’s disgusting that a game featuring simulated killing should be targeted at teenagers in this way and presented as entertainment. I wonder if anyone involved in the creation of this game will be able to sleep at night after someone decides to try and copy what he sees.

There was no other point. I’m not even interested in games. I just post on random wordpress-based blogs with my cunningly evil ununclickable username in tow with the intent of tricking unsuspecting readers into adding to my Google Analytics score. I live for analytics. It’s such a joy to count the flies that get tangled up in my web.

Oh don’t worry, military recruiters aren’t allowed to start talking to kids and grooming them into the life until they’re at least 10 or 11.

Anyway it’s perfectly fine for adults like me. I’m a near-sighted and obese 30-year-old with gastrointestinal problems, it would just be a safe fantasy since the recruiters wouldn’t take me. Granted, a game like this isn’t nearly as interesting to me now as it was when I was 15 … hmm.

I don’t know if you are referring to country’s where military service is mandatory, but here in the UK they are extremely picky on who joins. I am a very fit, young able bodied man but was turned away for a mental disorder (aspergeous). A friend of mine who is extremely fit and would no doubt have made a great soldier was turned away for bouts of depression and attempted suicide from when he was a pre-teen (and it was only attention seeking wrist cutting – not full blown hanging himself or similar).

I don’t know what it is like now, but there have been complaints for years about how the US standards have dropped. The education requirement was lowered quite a while back because recruitment numbers dropped as better educated people weren’t enlisting. Relaxed standards also led to issues with more criminals, particularly active gang members, enlisting. (With gang members recruiting other members of their units into their gangs, as well.)

I don’t know how well that applies to physical standards. I think they’ve held on to those a bit stronger.

I find the problem isn’t the simulated killing.
It’s one thing to use pretend violence as entertainment, it’s a wholly different story to use pretend violence to get young people interested in the real thing.

I’m actually kind of liking the new game. It has potential and is a heck of a lot more polished than AA3.
I hope they add more European servers and more hardcore servers. Also, the animations need to be redone.

I played the old America’s Army and, to my surprise, found it to be rather entertaining. Far more realistic than most shooters. I remember it took me quite a while to actually complete the sniper training (hit a lot of targets within a certain amount of time, can’t miss more than a certain amount of times).